Your Naak is Getting Thulo

There is a phrase P occasionally playfully teases me with. He said it last night, so I thought I’d post about it…

In English when someone is complemented or praised too much you might accuse that person of “getting a big head” meaning all the praise might make him or her too proud or make them think that they are really great—something like that. There is a similar expression in Nepali, but instead of your head getting big, it’s your naak or your nose. The phrase is something like “Timro naak thulo hudai cha” your nose is getting big. Instead P will say to me, “Your naak is getting thulo.”

Last night the expression was said in the context of: I had a gift card to go to one of those pizza places with specialty pizzas—not your regular mushroom or pepperoni, but cheeseburger, nacho, or Greek salad pizza, stuff like that. I thought the pizza was really good, but P said it was only “okay” he’d had better, “actually your homemade pizza is a lot better than this.”

I smiled, “Oh yeah? Good to know.”

“Uh oh, your naak is getting thulo.”

Another instance when my naak gets a bit thulo? When I get a large number of blog views on a particular day ;)

So perhaps the next time your significant other gets unsolicited compliments and you want to tease them about it… you can mention their thulo naak as well.